out and about

"Out." "Get Out." "Stay out." "NO TRESPASSING." "In the closet." "Out of the box." "Outside the lines." "Over the border."

Where are these lines, these closets, these borders, these spaces? How have they been blurred, signified, created, enforced?

We ask these questions now: for ourselves, for the generations before us, for generations to come. This is our contemporary consciousness.

I went to church yesterday and had a class on "Christian Mysticism." It brought back my studies of Plato's Republic, the teachings of Socrates (and Satie's Socrates, and Cage's Cheap imitation); Galileo's tub displacement; and Homer's Odyssey. These were the texts of my childhood, my early consciousness, my father's voice in English translation (neither of us knew enough Ancient Greek or Latin to get by).

I pulled all my mystical texts from my library: Islam (Quran, Rushdie, Said's Orientalism); England; China; and many more that I have accumulated across my 18 years of adult life. I've traveled extensively and witnessed sacred spaces of many shapes and forms, from the occult to Byzantine Orthodox (thanks, Park Slope!). Priests listen, watch, bear witness. I cry. This is my faith now.

​Thanks for listening.